Mind Your Manners
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: I didn't ask to pass away; even so, I was content to do so. I'd lived a good life. Done enough. Said enough. Time to move on. Life had other plans. You see, when my weak constitution failed me, I closed my eyes and sank into the sweet embrace of slumber. I didn't expect to wake up again as a screaming baby. Guess I should mind my manners. Self insert, OC. Pairing undecided...?


**A/N: DOUBLE UPDATE DAY! WHOO!**

** *EDIT***

**Sorry that this is short.**

**But hey, its a break from Fate stories.**

**If folks like it, great. It'll stick around. If not it'll be gone in two days.**

**Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can continue; this is a self insert story...with a twist.**

**The trolls telling me to kill myself, hoping I drown down in the hurricane, can fuck right off. ****I don't even live there! **

** I'll say it up front, Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen and other brilliant stories by Sage Thresher inspired me to do this. I only went ahead with writing this after talking to Silver Queen in the first place; and I can say with 100% certainty that her story is far and away one of the best stories I've read. Sage Thresher's stuff isn't far behind. I can safely say that those two are the cream of the crop when it comes to self-insert stories. There are other authors who are absolutely grand at this sort of thing as well. I'm a bit of a newcomer to the whole thing.**

**Now, I usually don't try this sort of thing.**

**Just think of this...as an experiment of sorts.**

**You guys and gals decide if things continue here...or not.**

**Its also one of the pure Naruto stories I've written in awhile.**

**As ever, this will be gone in _two days_ if folks don't like it. I dearly hope they like it.**

**Thank you for all the wonderful support!**

**...I'm not sorry for the title.**

**It just came to me.**

_"Try to stay alive...if you can."_

_~?_

**Mind Your Manners (Prologue)**

_Damn, I really didn't expect to go out like this, you know?_

_I'm used to suffering; gotten good at ignoring it._

_You could even say pain is an old friend._

_When one lives with a...defective body such as mine, you learn to ignore certain kinds of pain. Rather, you become desensitized to it. Think of it like calluses. If you do enough work with your hands they'll hurt at first but eventually you pass the point of pain and get used to it. The mind's a similar thing I suppose. Just another muscle to use. The doctors said I'd be lucky to make it through my first year. Defective heard, weak body, barely clinging onto life. Somehow, I managed to beat that first awful prediction. But we all die sooner or later, don't we? No one is eternal._

_In the end, it wasn't stress that killed me. I almost wish I could say that it did._

_No, it was my weak constitution that did me in. It just...happened._

_One day my heart just...stopped._

_And I opened my eyes._

* * *

_(...0o0o0...)_

* * *

I couldn't think

Couldn't feel.

Breathe.

And then there was light.

It flooded my vision all at once, bringing with it a sursurus of sights and sound that my brain didn't want comprehend. No, that wasn't it, I realized. I _couldn't_ comprehend them. Everything was suddenly so fresh and raw and vibrant and new that I didn't know what to do.

I couldn't make sense of it all, let alone what had happened to me.

I remembered a terrible pain in my chest.

A feeling of weightlessness.

And now-

"Twins!"

That word pierced the gloom and my thoughts with it, sending everything spinning.

My world was a whorl of lights and sounds, a tattered and tangled blur that offered me neither peace nor quiet. No semblance of solace or sanity. I wanted it to stop. Make it stop. It was all too much to process at once, a fit of noise and sound that threatened to swallow me whole. Who was carrying me? Why was everything so large-or was I just small? I didn't know. I didn't know, I didn't know. Ididnotknow and as the incessant buzz of voices both familiar and unfamiliar grew louder, as my confusion climbed ever higher, something snapped.

A small, animistic part of myself scrunched up its eyes, balled its fists, and screamed for it all to stop.

I screamed with it.

"Waaaaaaaaah!"

The voice that emerged did not belong to me, it was an infant's high and reedy. My mind, fractured though it was, instantly ground to a halt. The world stopped. My life stopped. My brain stopped, and subsequently went right back around in a mad struggle to understand just what was happening, what I was looking at, what I was feeling...all to no avail. Sensory overload smashed down all barriers and refused to behave. Rather than be a sane, rational creature my tortured psyche decided now would be a perfectly good time to clamp down, In the end, only three words rose to the forefront.

What?

The?

Hell?

Whomever was holding me jolted, startled by my sudden shout and subsequent silence s much as the fistful of blond hair I now held in my grasp. But not so much as I. Frantically, I tried to marshal my thoughts, to make some semblance of sense from all this, to no avail. Every conscious action threatened to wriggle out from under my fingers, leaving me grasping at naught but air. I knew things. I remembered things. But my body would have none of it and refused to cooperate, refused to do anything at all save curl into a ball.

Because in that moment, that brief millisecond before panic seized me again, I'd seen someone's face.

I knew it.

Recognized them.

Rather, the headband he wore.

And the sigil of the Leaf carved into it.

Perhaps I knew what I'd lost then. Where I was.

Whoever I was-what was my name again?-wherever I'd been, whoever I was, they were gone. Lost forever. They only remained in my thoughts as a vague identity. One that did absolutely _nothing _to help as I my frantic flailing body thrashed about like a drunkard at last call. No. No, no. No, no, no. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. I wasn't cut out for this. No. Not in the least. I should be gone. Should be dead. Let they few who knew me, mourn me. I wanted nothing to do with this nightmare I'd fallen into. I was in no way, shape, or form, cut out for any of this in the least.

It wasn't fair. I didn't want this. Didn't want to be here.

I just wanted to rest, to go home.

But I couldn't, could I?

No, never again.

Never.

Regardless, my mind rebelled again and I cried even louder than before. Everything shut down, rational thought fleeing like a rat from a sinking ship. Too much. It was all just too much. This brave new world was all confusion and bright light and noise-makeitstop!-not because there was anything wrong with my brain or even my body, but because. I was an infant-no, a newborn at that. Wrapped in pale swaddling clothes, little more than a helpless babe in the arms of one Inoichi Yamanka. I was, thankfully, still very much a boy. I would later realize that I had a twin. But for now?

My new brain betrayed me in the most vicious way.

Panic seized my thoughts in a vice.

_And I wailed anew._

**A/N: And there we have it.**

**This will either be a smashing success, or it'll be a resounding failure. I've had quite a few persistent trolls as of late, but I'm not going to let them get to me. Writing is my purpose, not for myself but for stories. Looking at an idea and saying, hey, I think folks might like this. That's the core of who I am. ****I know I won't be around forever. I won't last for eternity. Nothing truly stands the test of time.**

**But here. In this moment. As I write these words, trying something I've never done before...I feel alive for the first time in awhile.**

**So, in the Immortal Words of Altas.****..Review, would you kindly?**

**No previews here. Not for this story.**

**Can't give anything away.**

**...fine. Just one.**

**(Preview)**

_I was a quiet child._

_And I learned to loathe my chakra._

_Growing up, feeling my chakra coils curl and grow inside of me and, well; it hurt, it hurt it, hurt! Moreso when your small and your only form of communication consisted crying. Of course, the same could be said of my sibling. __Try as I might, I didn't know what to make of Ino. In this world she was my twin. Should I feel a connection solely because of that?_

_I did._

_Even so, she just...kept...poking me...!_

**R&R! =D **


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